Chocolate help please!

[p.penn]

No, it's not help in eating chocolate!

I recently bought some new choccy moulds in the shape of little bars of choccy (I have used various ones over the years) and made my first lot out of yummy belgian milk chocolate to pop on the top of muffins a couple of weeks back.



Well, they were such a success that I thought I would make more, so bought white and plain belgian choccy and melted them very slowly and carefully, filled the moulds and popped them in the fridge. All fine.

Then I couldn't be bothered to make the cakes - I went to the beach instead , so I unmoulded them, put them into a little cellophane food bag and left them in my dining room.

My daughter came the next day and ate a couple -they were so good and actually a little softer than the original chocolate, then after 3 days we went to eat the rest of them (needs must! ) and they were really quite dry and very crumbly. The dark chocky had a white bloom too.

Any ideas? This has never happened before. Should I have kept them in the fridge? Or did I use too good a chocolate?

[manda]

That white bloom is down to the heat I would think at the moment...there's a few reasons for it but given the temps in the UK at the moment I would think that's the most likely.

[Mad Chick]

Yep, my guess would be heat too

Nick always keeps a good bar of plain choccy in his desk drawer where he thinks I can't find it and that too has had a white bloom on it this week (still tasted good though!)

[p.penn]

Yes, I did wonder if it was the weather -the odd thing was that the texture really changed too - it was like a crumbly brittle fudge

Perhaps I shall try again and keep them in the fridge this time. I had half a bar of each left over to make more but........

[saint-spoon]

The white bloom is the cocoa milk separating out… or it might be the solids, one or the other. Still tastes nice.

[Stef]

The fridge could cause bloom too. Either because a fridge is moist - so wrap them well - or because when you take them out they warm up and get a light sheen of condensation that then blooms.

Twas the bane of my life when I made truffles for half a living!

I settled on clingfilm and a tupperware box with a muslin package of milk powder, kept in out or the fridge. The milk powder soaks up much of the moistness and reduces bloom.

Works for seeds stored in the fridge too.

[secret squirrel]

I was given to understand your shouldn't put chocolate in the fridge . It's something to do with melting it and reforming it. It separates the solids and changes the structure.
I have an electric "vacuum sealer". Personally I would do exactly what you did but vacuum seal,it instead and keep it somewhere cool and dark.
Any bag which you can expel as much air as poss, would do.
White chocolate is harder to work with because of the percentage of cocoa butter to solids. The fat content is just different.
Lorna

[p.penn]

I think you are probably right about the fridge - but I was following the Land of Lakes instructions

I have given up during this weather and will try again when it is cooler.